- A hillside collapsed onto the Tsadqane Debre Mitmaq St Mary Monastery in Ethiopia’s Amhara region during a special overnight prayer service
- Officials confirmed 14 deaths and seven injuries after heavy rain triggered the disaster in the early hours of Monday morning
- Search and rescue operations at the monastery site have since been called off, raising fears for those still unaccounted for
Funerals have been held for victims of a deadly landslide that struck an Orthodox Christian monastery in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region while worshippers gathered for a night prayer service.
Fourteen people were killed when a hillside above the Tsadqane Debre Mitmaq St Mary Monastery gave way in the early hours of Monday morning, and rescue operations for those still feared trapped beneath the debris have since been halted.
Source: Getty Images
According to BBC, seven people survived with injuries, five of them seriously, according to Dagnachew Azbite, a senior local official. “The land above the cave slid after the heavy rain that lasted throughout the night,” he told the BBC.
Why So Many Were at the Monastery
The monastery contains a prayer chamber carved directly into the mountainside. Worshippers had assembled there for a holy water cleansing ritual, a practice widely observed among Ethiopian Orthodox Christians who seek spiritual relief from chronic illness.
“Many of those who died had gathered to receive the holy water,” Megabe Hadis Neka Tibeb Ababu, the diocese’s general manager, told the Associated Press.
Eleven of the victims were buried at the monastery itself, while the remaining bodies were returned to the deceased’s home communities for burial. Megabe noted that identifying some of the dead remained difficult.
Emergency teams, security personnel, healthcare workers and local residents all took part in rescue efforts at the site before operations were wound down.
Church Leader Visits Site to Mourn the Dead
Archbishop Abune Klementos, head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church‘s North Shewa Diocese, made his way to the monastery to lead funeral prayers, visit the injured and comfort bereaved families.
Landslides are a seasonal danger in Ethiopia, with most incidents occurring during the main rainy season between June and August. In March 2026, more than 100 people died in floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains in the southern Gamo Zone.
A landslide in the neighbouring Geze Gofa Zone in July 2024 killed more than 229 people, including rescuers, making it one of the country’s deadliest weather-related disasters in recent years.
Scientists have repeatedly warned that human-driven climate change is making intense, prolonged downpours more frequent across East Africa, a trend supported by numerous studies conducted over the past two decades.
Ethiopians flee to Sudan
Legit.ng earlier reported that Hundreds of Ethiopians from the Tigray region have crossed into Sudan after fierce fighting broke out between Tigrayan regional forces and the Ethiopian federal army on Saturday, in what observers are calling the most serious outbreak of violence since the 2022 peace deal ended the country’s civil war.
Source: Legit.ng